BACKGROUND Neonatal units' volume of activity, and other quantitative and qualitative variables, such as staffing, workload, work environment, care organization and geographical location, may influence the outcome of high risk newborns. Data about the distribution of these variables and their relationships among Italian neonatal units are lacking. METHODS Between March 2010-April 2011, 63 neo...

OBJECTIVE Understand the conditions involved in the management of nursing care in emergency care units. METHODOLOGY Qualitative research using the methodological framework of the Grounded Theory. Data collection occurred from September 2011 to June 2012 through semi-structured interviews with 20 participants of the two emergency care units in the city of Florianopolis, Brazil. RESULTS Hinde...

CRITICALCARENURSE Vol 27, No. 2, APRIL 2007 53 Angela Smith Collins has more than 30 years of experience in nursing, the past 13 years as an advanced practice nurse. She is an associate professor of nursing at the Capstone College of Nursing in Tuscaloosa, Ala, where she teaches pharmacology, critical care nursing, and perioperative nursing. She holds APN certification as a medical-surgical cli...

maintaining dignity and respect is among patients’ most fundamental rights. the importance of patient dignity, the status quo, patients’ needs, and a shortage of survey studies in this area were the underlying incentives for conducting this study. this was a cross-sectional descriptive study in which data were collected through patient dignity inventory (pdi). the questionnaire was completed by...

Flawless execution rests in the hands of nurse managers. No one can work alone in health care any more. We are interdependent and know that the best outcomes happen when practices are organized around collegial supportive structures rather than autonomous competitive units. We are only as strong as our weakest link. If all managers see the big picture and look beyond their units for what is rig...

Background: Better healthcare outcomes in health services are obtainable from frequently observing ongoing healthcare activities, gathering data, and assessing outcomes. Objectives: This study aimed to establish the basic principles of nursing care standards and practices in wards, develop a nursing audit tool for periodically monitoring and controlling o...

Introduction: To achieve optimal patient outcomes, nurses working in critical care should hold a specialty qualification. Currently no uniform practice outcomes for critical care programs exist. Varying interpretations of a “critical care qualification” have been used as there are no agreed practice standards to measure outcomes. Additionally there have been no reported attempts to include heal...

http://ajcc.aacnjournals.org • BACKGROUND Attempts to improve end-of-life care increasingly focus on family-centered care, but few validated assessment tools exist. • OBJECTIVES To evaluate 3 new short questionnaires measuring nurses’ perspectives on family-centered end-of-life care in the intensive care unit and to show the usefulness of the questionnaires. • METHODS Principal components analy...